Going beyond: the science behind the Ouija board

A new study in Denmark has sought to explore the science behind one of the supernatural’s most famous artifacts

Despite the brand Ouija famously being owned by toy company Hasbro and having been licenced for two movies, the Ouija board still remains one of the most mysterious supernatural objects in the world. A new study led by Marc Anderson from the School of Culture and Society at Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark has sought to finally find an explanation for the mysteries of the spirit board.

Anderson and his team established a test at a popular paranormal conferance where Ouija board sessions were often carried out. Through the use of camera’s, the tests 40 participants had their eye movements tracked as they watched the planchette.

They each took part in two tests, in the first they were asked to deliberately move the planchette to ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ and to spell out the word ‘BALTIMORE’. They also then participated in a traditional session where they were allowed to ask their own question. Anderson was looking for Sense of Agency or a feeling of control over the participants surroundings. The researchers found that the participants had a high Sense of Agency in the test where they were deliberately moving the planchette but they also noted something interesting in the open session.

While initially the participants had little eye movement when asking their own questions, as soon as the planchette began to move their Sense of Agency, and thus their eye movement, increased indicating that their brains were predicting potential answers. Their eyes would move onto potential next letters and as a result would guide their hands in moving the planchette.

Our results show that users in Ouija board sessions become increasingly better at predicting letters as responses unfold over time, and that meaningful responses from the Ouija board can only be accounted for when considering interactions that goes on at the participant pair level. These results suggest that meaningful responses from the Ouija board may be an emergent property of interacting and predicting minds that increasingly impose structure on initially random events in Ouija sessions.

Does this mean that science has solved the Ouija board? Will Hasbro have to change one of the worlds oldest games? Read the full report and let us know what you think over on our Twitter.